All right nothing gets me more enthusiastic then a gig of my all time fave band in my all time fave club with me as a DJ. No need to tell everything again now. So I'll be very short and clear today!

Next week Wednesday (may 20, in 7 days and counting) in VERA, Groningen there'll be a triple gig of 2 (very) good bands and 1 SUPERBAND. Mr Airplane Man will be opening the night, The Boogie Chillers will be in between and the evening will be nicely rounded off by Gories. Be there or be as dull as any ...

Ooh la la, what a cool record, the 4th record by Canadian Daniel Romano that is.I'm not in the habit of writing record reviews, but I will try to re-introduce (a minor form of) that habit.Back in the day (1995, 1996, maybe 1997) this website ran an interview section.Later on I and the website were dedicated to the discography sections, live gigs, DJing and the (now 2 but there's a 3rd one coming) kids.In th 90s form reviews will probably not return here ever, but now and then I need to tell you about cool, great, remarkable, historic, etc records.Most reviews will not be very long, since I consider up to 7 tweets length long enough for a review.And I tend not to review stuff I think you needn't have, so the general advice always will most likely be check it out and if you can buy a physical copy.

Country music in The Netherlands almost never got serious reviews from serious critics.Probably the only large exception on a serious scaleNow it was a bout a time somebody was going to step in the line of 1953Daniel G. Romano AND HIS MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME NO DOUBT IS pARSONS or he is an illegitimate child etc ...Daniel RomanoNormaltown Records

wednesday september 25, 2013

#POPQUIZ @ Singlier #1

Allright, after 10 years of solid experience with 10 yearly popquizzes in a row in VERA, Groningen now it
is time to expand to a second location.

Best pub or place to drink booze inside the borders of our wonderful city of Groningen and south of VERA is
Café De Singelier, Coendersweg 44 (on the corner with the Helperbrink).
Next saturday (sept 28) there'll be a #POPQUIZ, the first at that location.
Concept, rules etc are all the same as in VERA, but the music will be more general, so we're not gonna discuss or ask anything VERA connected.

Details:

3 rounds and a final, at 20:45/21:45/22:45 and 23:45 respectively

join in with a team of maximum 5 persons, participating on your own is a possibility, but that's hard, no team smaller than 5 can refuse sole competitors looking to be a memm=eber of a team

if you wanna know to be included in the competition upfront be sure to contact the pub

there's real prizes (booze mainly)

as said above this is for all musiclovers, not just underground crusties

and this also is not for old folks only, youngsters will be supported severely by some nasty post-2000 questions

costs are 2.50 euro per competing person

sunday september 22, 2013

Playlist - Maston + The Resonars

Allright, last wednesday (sept 18) I was DJ in VERA, Groningen.
DJ before and after a gig that is and this time, since it was 2 bands playing, inbetween 2 gigs as well.
The bands playing were Matt Rendon and his The Resonars and Maston.

Both bands did do a neat job, especially the Hollyesque 3 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drum and up to 4 people on vocals by The acclaimed Resonars were neat.
Maston was a surprising act with lots of potential but I think live they need to mature a bit more, nothing wrong with that if you're, unlike me, young.
The Maston record is very good btw.

The playlist for the gig was not that difficult, garage (whatever that might be) 7"es only, except for the monster
Kris Kristofferson written Johnny Cash hit "For The Good Times".
And from the merch I bought a compilation LP with a new Jacco Gardner track.
Here's the PLAYLIST for Maston + The Resonars, VERA, september 18, 2013.

The poster of the gig (to the right), was silkscreenprinted by hand by Sjoerd Frenay.

friday september 20, 2013

Rip-off a sleeve #2 - Bastro And Codeine vs "Un Homme Et Une Femme"

Allright there's another friggin' cool example of a "rip-off sleeve", probably actually meant as a tribute to the music on the record inside the ripped off sleeve.

This time it's postrockers Bastro and Codeine in a joint effort.
I have listed this as a split 7" but it is actually a joint recording I think.
It was released by the immaculate german label Glitterhouse back in 1991.
The sleeve of the 7" actually has a tour schedule with a gig in VERA listed for october 3.
The a-side of the 7" has a cover of "A L'Ombre De Nous" (aka "In Our Shadow") as fond on the 1966 LP.

The sleeve of that 1991 7" is a rip off of a sleeve for a soundtrack released in the 60s, 1966 to be precise.
The film is called "Un Homme Et Une Femme" (aka "A Man And A Woman") and according to the sleeve it won some prize in Cannes.

If you know more examples of this "rip-off sleeve" scheme, especially if it's 7"es listed overhere, make my day and email or twitter me @GrunnenRocks.

thursday september 12, 2013

Take Root 2013

Allright, next up this saturday (and an opener tomorrow) there's the TakeRoot festival.
This festival is among the biggest in NL, and surely is the biggest with rootsey american music only.
Back in the days it started in Assen, which is 30 km to the south, it is the capitol of Drenthe, the next Dutch province.
The first installment was 1998, so this is #16.

My first TakeRoot was in 2010, when B was pregnant of our (to be) second boy.
I finally spoke to personal hero Mark Lanegan (thanks to Willem" Snorkel" Kolvoort) and his gig with Isobel Campbell was great.
Most surprising act of that first day for me was a band called Dave Rawlings Machine, with in its ranks Dave's girl Gillian Welch.
Among the best country-ish bands I ever saw, together with Freakwater I think.

My second TakeRoot was last year (2012) with B.
We had a great day and enjoyed Sam Baker and moreover Sleepy Sun and the REIGNING SOUND.
The oldfashioned and for me mostly relatively unknown bands made a great day.

This year the line-up is with a lot of people I don't know.
Main acts are Jimmy Lafave and especially Kris Kristofferson.
Kris always made relatively smooth country-songs and had some great hits in the US.
Johnny Cash covered on one of his American recordings album "For The Good Times", if that song will be played next saturday my day will be great, what a great track.

Even funnier is this year's company since I will be going there with my father in law.
Which is a novum in more than one respect.
Since my father managed to die when I was 9 I never saw any music, except an occasional wedding band, with him.
This isn't that big a thing but I've always seriously envied people who could/can go to a band with their father.
Well next saturday I'll have the second best, which is great.
In 3+ years there'll be another novum since I'll be a daddy with his son debuting in VERA then, that'll be the day.
All and all I can be brief: go there to check out cool bands you don't know yet, be surprised and request "For The Good Times" on my behalf!

Tomorrow there'll be an festival opening night in VERA.
A band cvalled The Revival Hour (stupid name) will be there and yours truly will be DJ, requests go through @GrunnenRocks.
I mostly will play country, blues and jazz from as old as I have it in my collection.
The biggest inspiration for tomorrow will be, besides earlier line-ups of the festival the mighty cool and must have Robert Crumb book "Heroes Of Blues, Jazz And Country", see the picture to the right.
No entrance fee when you have a ticket for the main festival on saturday.

monday september 9, 2013

Rip-off a sleeve #1 - The Mortals and Lee Morgan

Allright a new season a new chances. About last summer and lots more later on, but for now I'll be brief.
Later this year there'll be an EXPO in this city (Groningen, NL) called "Geluidsdragers".
"Geluidsdrager" is one of the coolest Dutch words I know and translates to the english "soundcarrier".
A definition is hard to give, but the expo starts off with 2 phonograph cylinders, then has some bakelite/shellac and some vinyl and ends with a mere USB-stick or maybe a boring Hard Disk.
For the expo I'm looking for loads and loads of ugly, funny and particularly weird stuff.

The main goals are to show why a MP3 should be cheaper than a vinyl 7" and why a recording without a sleeve is worthless.
At the EXPO I'll try and show that by means of all sorts of cool stuff, mainly vinyl and 78 RPM's.
One of the better examples of how cool a sleeve can be is the "rip-off sleeve".
For now here's a mighty fine example:
to the right you see the LP cover of a ultrafamous 1964 jazzzzz LP called "The Sidewinder" by Lee Morgan,
issued on the awesome Blue Note Records.
The smaller sleeve next to it is the 7" by the 90s garagerock band The Mortals.
Well since I'm way more into garagerock than into jazzzzz musicwise I prefer The Mortals but the cooler sleeve has the 1964 12" in it.

If you know of any cool examples of the same concept, a rip-off sleeve, I'll be happy to hear from ya!
Preferably through @GrunnenRocks but when you hate that (which you shouldn't) email is fine as well.

sunday june 30, 2013

LC 003 The Waistcoats "It's Not True"

Still no release schedule here, mainly because I now and then need to change in to a Suit-And-A-Tie-John-Doe.
The release of today is a real cool one.
This is from a 7" that is among the best NEDERBEAT singles ever released while I was alive.
Later the same version of the song was on the "Beat This" 10" (pic to the right).
It's by the immaculate THE WAISTCOATS from Grunnen Rocks City.
The track is called "It's Not True", but be warned this is infective stuff, play it 5 times and you'll be left with the song in your brain forever.

Look for DOWNLOAD "LC 003 - The Waistcoats - It's Not True.mp3" HERE in blue and (right)click that (on the #lowCost page for instance).

Today the debut release (the CDEP wil be in the shops next saturday) of local garage youngsters THE BLACK CULT.
The CDEP has 3 tracks, "Drugs", "High" and "Please".
I hard a time choosing between 'em but I chose "Drugs".
All three tracks are current state of the art psychedelic (especially the vocals) garagerock.
Check 'em out and be sure to attend next saturday's presentation of their debut CDEP in "Downstairs At Gibby's" (aka the basement in VERA).

Look for DOWNLOAD "LC 004 - The Black Cult - Drugs.mp3" HERE in blue and (right)click that (on the #lowCost page for instance).

monday june 3, 2013 #2

The Beavers "NANCY"

Yowsa, why do you start a downloadlabel? Eh ... to promote music and especially vinyl.
What music will you release? ... Whatever tickles my fancy.
Will you only local bands? ... No, they were just the easiest to ask.
What would be the coolest to release? ... Next to the "best track ever" or the "next big thing" eh ... Oblivians, Nervobeats, Gories, Dirtbombs, Sonic Youth, White Stripes, etc etc, see this website ;-)
What is the release of today? ... Today we have the MP3 version of the a-side of the best ever dutchmade 7".

The band is called THE BEAVERS, the original label is Kogar Records (thanks to Jan).
The track is the seminal "NANCY YOU'RE A SQUARE", it's about a local journalist named ... she now works with the local guitar shop called Tonika.
And now it's out on ... #lowCost, you're cheapo music label to get you unreleased (yet) music and sold out stuff.
Look for DOWNLOAD "LC 002 - The Beavers - Nancy You're A Square.mp3" HERE in blue and (right)click that (on the #lowCost page for instance).

monday june 3, 2013 #1

#lowCost but HIGH value #2

Next up: A local 60sbeatpunk band THE WAISTCOATS.
They exist since the early 90s or so and early this millennium they recorded the awesome "IT'S NOT TRUE".
That was released on the austrian label Pure Vinyl.
Later on: Anything is possible, don't hesistate to suggest me anything. Try the @Disqus box below (saturday june 1).
PS: Downloads go through these pages:
LC 00X #lowCost - LC 001 TRAUMAHELIKOPTER - LC 002 THE BEAVERS

saturday june 1, 2013

Leave a message?

Just trying out something here ...
Make my day and comment, harass me, etc ...
Anything will do ;-)

Allright time for something new.
Today is the official start of my new DOWNLOAD only label.
It's called #lowCost cause it shouldn't cost me a penny.
Since I'm totally in love with (local punkers among each other, blurgh) TRAUMAHELIKOPTER I thought to start off with an (almost) unreleased track by 'em.
IMHO they are one of the best ever dutch bands to roam this earth.
Their "DON'T DRINK AND DIE" is the 1st song they ever recorded an it was previously released on a 100% sold out self-released CS (which I myself don't even have, sob).
And now it's up for grabs from this site only, ENJOY!

Next up: Another local garagepunk band THE BEAVERS.
They exist since 1992 or so and back in the days they recorded the awesome "NANCY". That was released on the deservedly infamous Kogar Records and has been unavailable since almost 20 years.

Later on: Anything is possible, don't hesistate to suggest me anything.
PS: Downloads go through the #lowCost page or the TRAUMAHELIKOPTER page.
Look for "download it here" in blue and (right)click that.

saturday may 18, 2013

Mikal Cronin Rocks

An easy post today. Be sure to check out MIKAL CRONIN's new album
and, if you're in The Netherlands, go and watch this new star in Grunnen Rocks world today at the LE GUESS WHO festival in Utrecht.
The festival has a line up which you can only dream about, check the line up by clicking the poster to the right!
I will not be there, sob, do make sure I'm not missed.

Mikal Cronin's 2011 debut album on Trouble In Mind Records and his new one "MC II" on
Merge are among the best albums I've heard since the Hex Dispensers.
Loads of fuzz and guitar crafted into great garagey pop songs, the best ones being both A2's on the albums: "(I Don't Want) Apathy" & "Shout It Out".

You never know it beforehand, but now and then a really good band "explodes to stardom in music business".
I know a lot of bands that I'd like to "explode" as well.
That probably will never happen, that's a dirty rotten shame, but it is great nevertheless that Mikal Cronin
(and his pal Ty Segall as well) show the world there's guitars and not only hiphop, dance and techno.
I need that. The world (largely without knowing) needs that.

Allright, quite new star in The Netherlands is Jacco Gardner.
He is from Hoorn, North Holland (some 50 km to the north of Amsterdam) and he makes wonderful baroque pop.
I'd say garagepop with the tiniest bit of garage present, heavily inspired by late 60s, mostly english, quite soft, pop music.
After 2 singles he now released an album with the awesome Chicago label Trouble In Mind Records.
In The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg (together the socalled "BeNeLux") it is out on excellent and better in shape than ever before Excelsior.
If you want to check it out, there's a load of tracks on youtube with the monsterhit among them:
Clear The Air, check it out.

Next week at the SXSW festival in Austin, TX there'll be a quite surprising dutch party.
During the afternoon of March 13 in Bar 96 (96 Rainey Street) there'll be 7 dutch bands playing:

All of them good and especially the last two excellent, so in case you are in the capitol of the lonestar state next week wednesday be sure to go and check 'em out.
For details see the poster to the right.
That poster is a funny take on dutch tiles that used to be near the stove/heating in 17th century dutch houses.
All and all a definite must see.

BTW: The awesome traumahelikopter signed with Burger Records.
Among the best dutch punkbands ever (see below with feb 25) I forgot to mention Jabberwocky.

monday february 25, 2013

Happy 2013 - traumahelikopter makes it happen

Let's start this new year with a big HAPPY REST OF THE YEAR for all of you and for "BELG" as well.
Hope 2013 will bring (way) more of the good stuff than 2012 did.

My year started off in awesome fashion, thanks to the deservedly acclaimed (not for very long local) punkband traumahelikopter.
Even the usually totally punk ignoring national press managed to not oversee this great debuting punkband.

traumahelikopter is from Grunnen Rocks City North and there's 3 of 'em: Roel, Daan en Mark, together they're only 85.
In 2011 they presented their first two 7"es, the best song being "Room Service", check it out on youtube.

Last december there was a teaser 7" "Kids" for the now fresh debut LP called "traumahelikopter".
That album is out on virgin (limited) red or black vinyl (with a bonus CD as a box of MP3s) on the acclaimed dutch indie label Excelsior.

Describing that best album of 2013 is a nobrainer.
If you like to DANCE (like me) to a mix of 11% Gories, 9% Oblivians, 7% Ramones, 5% Hex Dispensers, 3% New Bomb Turks and 66% of the punk history of my hometown
and its "local scene" this is the one to buy.
To see what it does to the average 43 year old daddy see the haunting eyes of the guy to lower right, lack of oxygen here is as "clear" as can be.
I think total focus and mindfullness were present too, men do I LOVE (not freakin' "like", blurgh) this band.

The debut slab might be the best dutch punkalbum ever, the sparse (as a country we're way too wealthy to have good punkbands) competition being formed by
(not all straight up punk but hey there is no purist here)
Spider Rico, Green Hornet, Beavers, Claw Boys Claw, and Ivy Green? Probably missing some (older) names here, feel free to tweet me up about that.

Buy or die and be quick, I take it there's enough streetsmart punkers in Europe, but especially the US, to have this vinyl LP sell out within weeks.
And I take it Excelsior's Ferry will take care to have a no doubt soon needed second press a slightly altereded sleeve.

Just in, the last thing:

When you're a lucky bastard going to SXSW, be sure to be here:Hotel Vegas, 1500 E. Sixth Street, 78702 Austin, TX, US - Saturday 16 March 2013
They'll be among the very best bands of that night ... eh and the rest of the entire festival.

The next gig I'm gonna see is upcoming sunday, september 30.
In the dearly loved VERACLUB The Cynics will play.
As an added bonus legenbary The Outsiders' guitaris Ronnie Splinter will appear on a couple of songs.
Opening act will be The Peptones.

It's funny last time The Cynics played I missed them, that was march 26, 1992, they debuted in VERA april 5 1990.
Inbetween say the 1st incarnation of The Cramps and my start in VERA in 1993 quite a number of garagerock bands were missed by me.
In general 80s garage and rootsey rock'n'roll has always been under my radar, sorry about that folks.
Several bands that should have gotten more attention here come to mind:
Lime Spiders, Lyres, Green On Red, The Replacements, The Fuzztones, The Chesterfield Kings, The Morlocks, (older) Blue Cheer, and ... The Cynics!

The Cynics are an mucho important band.
They released a shitload of all cool and speedy 60s beat recordings and they are rumoured to be a great liveband.
And on top of that the 2 main members Kastelic and Kostelich run the cool Get Hip.
I think they got very high in the acclaimed VERAPOLL last time they played here (top 5 of 1992?), so beware!
I take it you already understood it: BE THERE and GET HIP!

Today's post is an easy one.
Among the easiest ever written for this nearly 17 year old website.
It basically comes down to: You must, I repeat MUST, buy and read
"Appetite For Self-Destruction, The Spectacular Crash Of The Record Industry In The Digital Age" by Steve Knopper.
That's all folks!

Now I'll elaborate a bit, just to fill the space next to the book's cover which is to the right.
The book was finished late 2008 and came out somewhere in 2009.
Steve Knopper is a music journalist by profession.
He wrote or writes for Wired, Esquire, Spin and Rolling Stone.

The book covers a lot of ground in music bizz inbetween the "end of disco" somewhere in 1979 and say the major labels reacting to peer-to-peer services up to 2007.
If I were to sell it in a recordstore my major selling point would be:
This is the true story behind the major labels (CBS, Sony, EMI, Universal, etc etc etc) and their rather surprising reactions (understatement)
to the changes in their business due to the world entering "the digital age", CD's, MP3s and file sharing in the 1st place.
The book is written by a journalist deeply involved in music business but not among its major stakeholders.
It's hard to imagine anybody else more capable of writing this book since Steve is old enough to know about self buying vinyl before there were Compact Discs
and young enough to enjoy the joys of internet and say "modern technology" (horrible 2 words, sorry).
I was actually most thrilled by the book since it has loads of data and stories that together form a
big part of the background of my main hobby since 1983 which is record buying and listening (and OK, collecting).

BTW Since the website was started in 1995 on September 19 it will turn 17 next week wednesday.
Expect some trubble.

friday september 7, 2012

Take Root, Incubate, Into The Great Wide Open & John Paul Keith

Allright, the dutch music festivals for years have been a strong contender for cool, groovy etc, never really for garagey or punking.
But hey you cannot have it all. Best ones are EuroSonic, Lowlands, North Sea Jazz, Pinkpop and Noorderslag but there's new kids on the block.

First of all the TakeRoot festival in Groningen city, sept 15 in De Oosterpoort to be exact.
The festival used to be in Assen, Drenthe and addresses "Americana", a term for a music genre probably only used outside the USA.
Its the 15th anniversay of the festival this year and they have Calexico, Wovenhand, Howlin Rain, and Sleepy Sun.
Off course you should go there since they also have all time rock'n'roll song faves Reigning Sound.

Really new is Into The Great Wide Open, starting today and ending sunday.
The Netherlands have only a couple of islands, 5 serious ones to the north of NL actually.
The good old TVTAS applies: Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog.
My girl, my boys and me were on the 5th one last summer, the most beautiful place to be in NL (except for the lack of punk).
Terschelling has its Oerol Festival and now Vlieland has its own festival: Into The Great Wide Open.
I deeply regret not to be able to go there since this year they have:
Case Mayfield, Anne Soldaat, Django Django, Dirty Beaches, Franz Ferdinand, Howlin Rain, Janne Schra, John Paul Keith,
Mozes And The Firstborn, Of Monsters And Men, Rats On Rafts, Spinvis and Warpaint.
All cool, but hey you should go there because of Mr. John Paul Keith in the 1st place.

Also new is Incubate in Tilburg, Noord-Brabant, during next week from 10 sept onwards to sept 16.
I won't be there, but hey this line-up is amazing, they have:
Reigning Sound, The Men, Mark Sultan, Laibach, Buzzcocks, Mogwai, Crocodiles, Japandroids, British Sea Power and a zillion other bands.
Only thing missing is bands on Hozac and the immaculate Mikal Cronin.
Not MTV but this festival should use the horrible word "alternative".
I'd love to be there and enjoy the totally funny Laibach (if you consider Rammstein funny, they took it all from Laibach's main record "Opus Dei").
The Men, Mr. Sultan and Reigning Sound are also 100% cool, so I might try to attend this festival next year.
Can't be done this year, except maybe the lecture by Robert Levine on saturday 15 sept 12:00, will have to see about that.

Last thing for today: Be sure to check out John Paul Keith, he played last nite in VERA.
It is like watching a gentleman trying to defy that there's some brittish bands coming over to the USA like The Beatles and The Stones.
All music he makes could have been recorded before my year of birth and my dad (who died in 1979) would have loved this.
It all sounds awesome, great gig, he would have done very well on Take Root.

saturday september 1, 2012

Vinaly in VERA, Grunnen Rocks City, NL

In 1877, exactly 99 years before punk started with the 1st Ramones 7" the phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison.
Some 10 years, septmber 1 1987 (exactly 125 years ago) Emile Berliner retrieved the patent for the flat record.

Edison basically invented the reproduction of sound.
He had a needle etch the outside of a round hollow piece of wax or plastic, which was presumably celluloid.
He was able, for the 1st time in history, to playback any sound.
The same device recorded music on the cylinder and was able to play it back.
So you can say he was the 1st recording engineer, recorded musician and that he invented a predecessor to the cassette aswell as the vinyl record.
The device was the earliest version of a phonograph.
The "sound carriers" that it recorded on and played by it were to become "phonography cylinders" ("wasrol" in dutch).

Off course Edison started to market his cylinders.
Another wellknown very early label is Columbia that also released phonograph cylinders.
The first ever "flat record label" was Berliner's company that started releasing flat records in 1889.
Another very early "flat record label" was Victor that started in 1901.

The first hit artist arbitrarily was Caruso who seld shiploads of opera records around 1904.
After the 1st WW the fist big selling non-classical artists were The Carter Family. They started recording and releasing in 1926.
The 1st 33RPM 12"LP and the 1st 45RPM 7"single were released in 1948 and 1949.

We're not gonna discuss the dreadful CD here, it was co-invented around 1980 by several people and 2 companies.
The first players were surprisingly enough sold by Dutch Philips (also a record label) and Japanese Sony in 1982 or 1983.
Well CD's and MP3's are not my kind of stuff, though I love to have copies of either one of them.

The music I love the most always was bought on VINYL.
Today in VERA we celebrate, mainly because we want to have a party, the 125 yrs of existence of the flat record.
Tonight there'll be vinyl only on the weekly dancenight, no CDs or MP3s allowed.
Near the entrance or the way out you'll find a "throwaway-museum".
It'll be there only tonight and it'll be open from 23:00 til at least 02:00.
The idea of the only exhibition in the museum is to, for once and for all, clearly show why vinyl outwits both CD and MP3.
Your hosts will be Eager Waistcoat/Beaver Jack
and yours truly, and yes we want a beer.

OK, so the dutchies have (once again) general elections coming up.
They'll be sept 12.
One of the newer parties, the Piraten Partij (Piracy Party) will quite likely not get my vote.
But this only-several-issues-party sure is right about one thing.
That is "freedom of speech" on the internet is a thing/concept to cherish.

Whenever anybody starts to talk about "civil rights" I generally get bored instantly.
Most of the time the speaker does not know his civil rights from his human rights and usually he just wants to say he's frustrated.
The frustration most of the time comes from very understable ideas conflicting with day-in-day-out practice at websites or forums.
Oh and also "file sharing" is not a civil right, "freedom of speech" is, "file sharing" is only a thing you can do on the www.

This week the almighty facebook managed to remove a very cool picture from some facebook account.
Don't remember which one actually, but that's besides the point anyway.
That picture now is both "cover photo" and "profile picture" (aka avatar) on my own facebook page.
42 years ago in 1970 we had general elections as well and the dutch pacifist party (PSP) was taking part in it.
They managed to make by far the most beautiful and coolest election poster ever.
It's A NAKED GIRL and A NAKED COW with the words "PSP" and "ONTWAPENEND".
As said "PSP" is the political party, "ontwapenend" translates to "disarming" which perfectly makes sense for a pacifist party.

I later on once voted for PSP's Andrée Van Es.
The PSP morphed with others into Groen Links aka "Green Left" which I have been voting for the last 15 years or so.

And here's to the people that were called "Moral Majority" in the USA (back in the 80s I believe).
They probably now are member of the tea party or vote for the republicans anyway:

There is NOTHING, I repeat: !!!NOTHING!!!, wrong with picturing a naked girl or a naked boy, or a naked cow.
I don't really see any point in that.

How you can you be pro-life (and against choice) and not be pro-naked woman?
Here's in case you don't know:
Naked women are part of the process of getting babies.
No higher power (not any one of 'em) should be used as an argument to forbid picturing a naked human, more specific a woman.
It's misogynistic and stupid, nuff said.

Allright, in the POPQUIZ there was a themed question about JSBX because I got a promo CD of the upcoming album.
Now there's a band and a label doing what they're supposed to do, from my point of view then.
First and most important the band: this new album can be seen as the return of the "real" JSBX, no remixes, no additional musicians, just 3 rockers doing tough blues with alot of soul.

The band will be in NL, august 13 in Amsterdam. There'll be a press meeting and a gig (?) in something like the Café in the ZiggoDome.
Might be there if we're not camping out due to the holidays, need to see that.

For now: All JSBX fans can look forward to a real neat new album, the first in 8 years, and btw it's called "Meat + Bone".
It'll be out on Bronze Rat Records (BR 29) half september.
Here's the tracklist:

Oh and for the non-thinkers: no I cannot have you listen to it, except for "Black Mold" (below), I'm really sorry.
When I'll have the opportunity to play a song in VERA I'll do (like last saturday) and that's all.
You'd better save money to buy the vinyl (like me).
Thanks to the who ever got me that CD, I could do with a really great promo (be it a CD as it may).

BTW The minor update is the links to the (largely unknown sofar) lyrics, of an unreleased record, that's a first in GRRHQ, a better update is this:

This years version of the "infamous" (blurgh) #POPQUIZ was #9.
We had a nice set of questions (compiled by yours truly) about
"North Sea Jazz",
shoegaze,
bands who named themselves after another band or performers' song
(like the Rolling Stones named themselves after Muddy Waters' 1950 track "Rollin' Stone")
and JSBX.
Dries (laughing his head off on the picture, click it to see more pics) won the final, congratulations to him and his awesome team.
Need to mention another debuting team as well.
"Seven Nation Army" with friends Bouwe, Seine,
Bouwe's dad Tjidsger, Edward and Frans.
If they'd add somebody who knows about chartbustin' music they'll stand a definite chance of winning the qualification round next time.
WELLDONE to you all. We'll be back next year, "no seven nation army is gonna hold us back".

Today, again, my musical brain is set to the POP QUIZ.
In one week there'll be #9 of VERA's infamous POP QUIZ.
#9 since I started doing that in 2004.
The quiz as always can have about any subject or theme but there's music in it somewhere.
Contrary to popular belief you needn't be a punker to win.
Just being a music fanatic and some VERA background should allow you to be #1.

thursday july 12, 2012minor update: friday july 13, 2012

On MusicBizz 01.01: Please no textual framing!

This is the start of an I hope not endless series of me ranting about music business.
Don't know where this will get us but we'll see about that later on.
In the meantime I can say the music bizz is not my business since I work in the telecom/computers sector.
I do run a tiny label though: HIGH Maintenance, that
amongst others released 7"es by The Dirtbombs (Detroit)
and The Monroes (Grunnen, NL, "Yurp", my hometown).

On this day after a really nice expensive gig by Bon Iver I must say I'm totally fed up with something we'll mention "textual framing".
I don't know why discussions in 2012 always end up with remarks like "that's a matter of opinion" or the infamous "matter of definition" ("definitiekwestie"), but somehow I feel
textual framing is one of the origins of that.
Here's some examples.

"Copying music files (aka file sharing) is theft", something like that was said at SXSW 2005 by Tony Wilson who once ran
Factory Records, a pretty nice UK record label.
-->
"Theft" as such would be going to a record store and taking
Mikal Cronin's great debut LP with you, without paying that is.
-->
"File sharing" is owning a copy of a file, making a second copy and send it to others or have other people download it.
-->
File sharing is a "copyright infringement", not a "copyright violation", for me that feels
like a reference to something like "raping", which is a true "violation".

Cynicism Redefined: Why The Copyright Lobby Loves Child Porn - Falkvinge on Infopolicy" -->
This title is cynical in itself.
-->
By the way it used to read something with "copyright industry", which is a nasty wordplay as well.
-->
Thee "copyright lobby" as such does not exist, it's just some folks lobbying to hold on to copyrights as a concept.
-->
Probably nobody who supports that lobby "loves child porn",
though it appears as if pedophiles can be everywhere so we don't know for sure.

And since we're here and since this site is on cool music you should try the A-Frames, an AWESOME band,
and we'll get to the lady next to this later on, but its Aimée Mann.

Wauwie, here's a cool GIVEAWAY.
While me was constantly listening to the new single by The Dirtbombs (mp3) Mick
thought to give away 10 copies of this raw, premastered recording.Email me with "Crazy For The Dirtbombs" in the subject and you'll stand a chance of getting to hear that really soon.
We'll email the mp3 to 10 people only. Those 10 will be among the first 25 people ever to hear that, life could be worse, I can tell ya.
Off course the track will end up on vinyl on the infamous In The Red label.

Allright here's the yearly announcement on that festival that every Amsterdamder should attend.
It's called Sleazefest.
This year they have, amongst others, Guitar Wolf, the AMAZING
Traumahelikopter and the Low Point Drains.
If you're near or in our capitol be sure to be there.

There's still Boegies MP3s to be given away. Any email with "Boegies" in the subject might do the trick, be sure to email me!

Here's some links to AWESOME songs you actually should be able to hum all day:

Ah ok, why not do something useful with this website ...
Undoubtedly the best punkband from Grunnen ever De Boegies just released all their albums, except the 1st one, in MP3 format.
Back in their days (1978-1990) they kind of invented their own musical genre called "pretpunk" (say "funpunk"), some mixture of mostly dutch lyrics, booze and pogo-ing.
I saw them at least twice:
- opening up for Tröckener Kecks in Huize Maas (1989)
- at dutch festival Noorderslag (1990)
They were great, especially their anthem "Mèh!" is an awesome track.
Loads of older, still existing or not, dutch bands do not take care of their music being available on the internet.
As opposed to these sillies the 4 wise men of De Boegies did: now you can download 4 of their 5 albums through
ITunes or stream their music
at Last FM
or Spotify.
Follow them through Twitter on @deboegies
or their facebook-page.

To celebrate this timetravel of Boegies music into the 21st century we can give away the entire set of MP3s (75) once and the live album (27 tracks) three times.
Email me (mention "Boegies" in the subject) and try to answer this question: How many times and in which years did
De Boegies play VERA
and/or Noorderslag.
Any additional talk on how great they were will raise your chances on winning.
Any stories about the band, or links to newly uploaded old (self?) scanned pics or old (self made) movieclips do also.
Sending any attachment wil destroy your chances 100%.
Reacting through twitter won't help, since I hate to be forced to remember tweets.
"Who the hell is Korsakoff? I don't know, I don't know."

ENJOY!

And as an extra bonus to all this: they enter @ #16 in my personal All Time Cool Band list.
The 3rd dutch band ever (so far), the other two are garage bands, you purists.

YES! I love it when a plan comes together.
4 years after their birth Renger "Tommy" Ramone, Tijn "Dee Dee" Ramone, Thijs "Johnny" Ramone and Gosse "Joey" Ramone this afternoon had their first ever gig.
I saw the real "old Ramones" twice and these youngsters blew 'm away with their playback version of "Hey Ho, Let's Go" aka "Blitzkrieg Bop".
The 4 new Ramones are 4 years old each and together they might be 18.
Don't know when exactly the first gig of the old Ramones was but I take it their youngest member in 1974 was at least 20.
Anyway here's a first pic, this is the band backstage after their first gig, click on it and you'll see it in the original size.
I hope to be able to bring you a cool feature movie on this awesome gig asap.

All this fun comes with a mighty big thank you to Yvonne Ramone, Hanka Ramone, Charlotte Ramone, Berber Ramone,
The Haydn School and the immaculate RAMONES ROADCREW.

I think the definitive opening band for the Candy Band has been established.
Now we need to get these 4 kids to Detroit or the ladies should come over and play Europe.

Ooh la la.
In two weeks there'll be #13 (!) of the infamous
Sleazefest
festival in Amsterdam.
UK's loud garage rockin' Atomic Suplex, Dirty Beaches and cool Anatopia are playing.
Cool DJs and about 10 lesser known bands playing but they'll be worth your money.
Trough the years zZz's Björn Ottenheim who books the festival clearly showed to have great taste, no worries there.

Check the music on #3voor12's luisterpaal:
SLEAZE SAMPLER 2011!!!.
And be there, be outside NL or change dipers.

thursday june 23, 2011
slightly edited june 27, 2011

Smith Westerns + "Geef Voor New Wave"

While still humming the Davila 666 hits (most of them on the 2nd LP) my music-overloaded mind is moving on.
Right now it is switching to the (probably) next big things in Grunnen Rocks world.
Until august 25 there might be an occasional band that I really never heard of so far.
That band obviously might manage to get my ears listening to them all time of the day and spent all my money on their first vinyl 7", you never know.
And yes there are some bands playing in town that I might go and see (again), you never know.

But ... first things first and this comes down to me and the girl always first have to go and get the 2nd kid out of his poop-diper and get him to bed and off course bring #1 to school.
Inbetween doing that I think the most played record up to august will be that really cool new one by the immaculate Black Lips.
And of course both LPs by The Smith Westerns, they'll be playing in Groningen august 25, I'll be DJ and that's "my next big gig".
Except for one thing, I will go to the BLOWLANDS festival once again
and of course
except for the yearly popquiz, as brought to you by Sebastiaan and me, on august 6 in VERA.

Triggered by the sad demise of Poly Styrene (snif, cool girl and best punk-pseudonym ever)
I got a copy of "Geef Voor New Wave", with the immaculate "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" by X-Ray Spex.
Loads of 1977 tracks by 70s punk/new wave/r'n'r bands on it.
Must have some countries for the bands on the compilation wrongly listed, in case you feel like it, please tell me through email.

Here's one of my today's tweets:
I will be surprised if not stunned when the @davilasix
gig of last nite doesn't turn out to be my best VERA gig of 2011 SUPERBAND #Davila666

thursday june 16, 2011

Davila 666

Eh ... "Mr. GrunnenRocks" ...

What vinyl records will you play upcoming days?

And what freakin' digital files(ripped, youtube, mp3 or otherwise) will be played until next tuesday (june 21)?

What do you consider the best band from Puerto Rico ever?

The answer to all those questions is: Davila 666.
They'll be playing, after The Swains, in VERA upcoming tuesday.
Read all about it in dutch
and yes this evening comes recommended!
If you're in town and you miss 'em you'll be sorry.
Don't say I didn't warn you.

saturday june 11, 2011

Bloody Pink Floyd

Thanks to the brilliant Sebastiaan Snijder I now finally typed in the records I have of that so-so british band called Pink Floyd.
I used to hate them, back in the 80s/90s, most of all because of the way people loved them.
As if they were genius because they did add some fly on I believe "UmmaGumma"?
And yes off course that "UmmaGumma" sleeve is a well-thought copy of the idea called "the Droste-effect" in dutch, but hey do I care?
Anyway nowadays I recognise their sparse brilliant moments, "Money" for instance and OK ...
great songtitles like "Interstellar Overdrive" and "See Emily Play", but they will not ever be my glass of beer or wine.
Here's the latest incarnation of my personal all time band list.
Pink Floyd is on #20 out of 23, hmmmm ...

wednesday june 8, 2011

Gideon Festival in Grunnen:
The Dwarves and 130 bands moore

This is just in case you're a local moron ...
Upcoming weekend there's the yearly Gideon Festival in Grunnen Rocks City.
130+ bands are playing, lots of cool ones, but ...
Thee headliners are The Dwarves.
Third time in this city, 4th time I'll be seeing them.
One of thee best punk bands ever, and amongst the best 5 of thee creepy gunk-punk loaded nineties.
Other bands playing: Traumahelikopter, Loud Squirt, Fuckups, Voodoo Swing, Def P, E.T. Explore Me, El Camaro, Sexton Creeps, The Monroes & Svetkoff Lamps.

All bands and especially the festival come recommended.

friday may 27, 2011

The Embarrassment

HA! Finally got my hands on a vinyl record by The Embarrassment.
It's their 2nd(?) release, recorded in 1980 and released in 1981.
And yes it has the immaculate "I'm A Don Juan", as introduced to me on that cool "Rough Trade Shops Rock And Roll" 1 7" comp (Mute, 2002).
Original art-garage-punky band, from the USA off course.
Check 'em out on youtube: The Embarrassment - I'm A Don Juan

And a late call, but saturday evening you must be at @VeraClub --> De Kik is playing, with The Madd's Dave Von Raven and Mark & Spies' Arjan Spies.

And what the heck, once again -->
My fave record of 2011 so far is:The Volebeats new (9th) album.
Just to let you know.

Will try to describe the music on that album now.
It's kind of a mix of the Beach Boys' poppy songs, Built To Spill's "Car" and Beatles "Norwegian Woods".
A slight #garagepop touch added, otherwise this record wouldn't have made it to here.
So this is 100% (the best available in store now) "how to charm your lady music while she has a headache" music.

Thanks to Robbie who got me this CD,
thanks to Jan who sold me the 2xLP and
thanks to myself for lending it to somebody and not remembering to who.

Moon Duo, an awesome relatively new band, tonight in VERA.
Do not miss 'm, like silly me missed Red Dons last tuesday.

#2 wednesday april 6, 2011

Dum Dum Girls & Lieuwe

Funny how things appear to interact now and then.
Some 9 months ago Lieuwe's delivery process was started about the time when I was trying to have the
DUM DUM GIRLS play in VERA when my website existed for 15 years.
That latter thing didn't succeed, never organised anything else basically.
The first thing did succeed, original due date was april 10, soon adjusted to april 9.
Last fall, october 4, I saw (together with neighbour girl Stella, thanks to Bob)
the DUM DUM GIRLS being the main act on a tuesday night in Paradiso, Amsterdam with MGMT closing in.
Cool show, sound was below par (probably tuned for MGMT instead of DDG) but a mighty good show nevertheless.
Same night I managed to see 2 tracks by the Magic Kids.
Later on a VERA show was booked for the DUM DUM GIRLS, scheduled april 8.
I was booked as a DJ, but due to a Communication Breakdown that didn't work out.
Later my girl got gestational diabetes and last week, in the hospital, LIEUWE was born, being forced out by some serious SM drug called oxytocine (big thanks to Renske Gardenbroek).
Since that he only slept at days and at nights we didn't until yesterday.
That changed last night, so things are opening up for upcoming friday.
Next friday I'm gonna finally see the band that released last year's best album ("I Will Be") in the world's best club.
Needless to say you must be a moron to miss this AWESOME band, and if possible buy the awesome new 12" ("He Gets Me High"),
that awesome debut album and/or anything else.
RECOMMENDED

#1 wednesday april 6, 2011

Dow Jones And The Industrials & The Gizmos

In general I'm not into any (re)release of old stuff, except for bands that I've known by name for long and don't have in my collection at all.
The famous debut (and only) 7" by Dow Jones And The Industrials was reissued and I was able to buy a copy at the local recordstore.
Off course this brought me to dig up the only release by The Gizmos I have at home.
Me digging up old(er) records I used to play is always a good thing and actually playing them on a recordplayer is even better.
Good times are killing me.

wednesday march 30, 2011

Lieuwe Rocks

HA!
Born today at 16:13, 3710 grams of LIEUWE NIJKAMP!
Click on the small pic and see a bigger one.
;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-)

saturday march 26, 2011

Covers by Dum Dum Girls

Another go at the page of the awesome DUM DUM GIRLS.
This time I tried to identify all covers they released so far.
After humming "Baby Don't Go" for a year now I finally checked who recorded the original, that is cool duo Sonny & Cher.
All 'n all the Dum Dum Girls recorded and released 7 covers so far:

Allright here's another attempt to a complete listing for a band, this time it's mighty cool DUM DUM GIRLS.
Their debut LP (last year's "I Will Be" on Hozac, later rereleased on Subpop) is my fave 2010 album.
This year they released an even better 12"EP entitled "He Gets Me High" (on Subpop again).
A very powerfull mix of The Shangri-Las and
The Jesus And Mary Chain, what a sound and what a songs.
There's even a Smiths cover included: "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out".

And yes they will play your fave club
(to quote ERIC DAVIDSON of NBT: one of the three best clubs on this planet)
VERA GRONINGEN on april 8. Be there or be stupid or just be A 2nd time father.

You all know you should not confuse girls and boys, so be sure not to confuse the Dum Dum Girls with either one of these 3 bands:

Allright here's an attempt to a complete listing for Tyvek.
Complete is an attempt by definition but I do think I managed to list all vinyl released with them on it.
In case you know anything missing please email me.
And while you're at it be sure to check last year's awesome NOTHING FITS LP (ITR), that one is among my 2010 fave top 10.

YOWSA!
Allright 2011 VERA-gig #1 (for me):
Tyvek was mighty mighty cool, great gig, cool people, awesome female bass-player
(now and then I'm a "sexist bastard from hell", admitted, sorry) and 3 boys.
They even played both sides of their debut 7", anybody complaining? Not Me.
Be sure to check 'm live or otherwise.

While the todo list (on all fronts) is growing all the time I'm mighty well looking forward to the first super-gig of
this year in VERA.
Two more days and on friday march 11 we'll have our minds blown away by TYVEK.
Be sure not to miss 'em when you're in town (or anywhere else on this planet).
Last thing: hope they'll do both sides of their awesome debut 7" (pictured to the right).
BTW be sure to keep an eye on
VERA's cool "main hall" schedule'
for the coming months, lots of cool gigs coming.
Will try to keep you posted, but hey there's a 2nd bun in my girl's oven ;-)
Due date is april 9, but we won't reach that due to gestational diabetes (no thanks to anybody).

tuesday january 4, 2011

Happy 2011

I hope for all of you and us 2011 will outwit 2010 on all (positive) accounts.
For B, G & me I hope the 2nd kid will be born around april 9 and be as cool a rocking girl/guy as the guy to the right.
For this website I hope Drupal will bring some life into it. Any help for that is appreciated.
Thanks to skilip = Philip Vergunst btw.
Next up: my fave albums of 2010.